Pink or Blue

Imagine walking into your local ice cream establishment with the promising prospect that you will get exactly your favorite kind of ice cream, but the equally promising possibility of disappointment that you will receive a flavor that you absolutely despise (for me this would be like being promised a reasonable shot at Mint Chocolate Chip Chunk – which I love – or the equal prospect that I could end up with a cone full of coffee flavored Rocky Road – of which I’m not a fan). You’ve been given the gift of free ice cream, but the catch is that you can’t know which flavor you will receive. You just have to take what you get. And then add to your dilemma the question of whether or not you really need any ice cream anyway? The scales did indicate that you are a few pounds from moving into a new body fat category, not the kind of club where you really want a membership.

For some people, even if they aren’t sure they will really love the ice cream they’re given, the prospect that they might receive their preference is enough to take the ice cream challenge. For others, the possibility that they might not get their preference will deter them from accepting the offer. The reality iabout this decision is that it would be so much easier if you knew in advance exactly what kind of ice cream you were going to receive. This would help you decide whether or not to eat the ice cream or pass.

What happens when we live in a world where this is the kind of logic – the desire to know whether or not we are receiving what we want – steers an individual’s or couple’s motivation about whether or not to keep or abort a pregnancy? This, of course, is already happening in millions of cases around the world as thousands of pregnancies will be terminated this year simply because adults will decide that an unwanted, unplanned, unhealthy or unanticipated pregnancy isn’t worth the inconvenience this child will present to their current lifestyle.

But what happens when the parameters surrounding the decision to abort a pregnancy became much narrower, and in actuality, more cruel and selfish? What does it say about human nature when people are allowed to abort a pregnancy based simply on the sex/gender of the unborn child? Is it our right to choose the sex of our child?

There are now home pregnancy tests which also supposedly inform the couple of the sex of their child during the first few weeks of pregnancy. For some couples, this has become a viable way of determining whether or not they want to abort their pregnancy. The accuracy of these tests have come under fire, but this isn’t the real issue here.

The real issue is the horror of a culture that affirms the right of a woman or man to choose whether or not to abort a pregnancy based solely on their preference of having a son or a daughter. Can you imagine the psychological injury that might be inflicted on the child that discovers that had he/she been the opposite sex that mom and dad would have rather killed him/her than raise them in a loving, nurturing environment simply because they weren’t their “preference”?

It is a great tragedy that we live in a secular humanistic culture that celebrates our right to make decisions about life that only God should make. It is perhaps an even greater tragedy thaht this horrific evil impugns God’s holy decrees in this world. Abortion isn’t the unforgiveable sin. It is one of many sins for which Jesus Christ bore the full wrath of God on the cross. Jesus is able and willing to redeem every woman who has had an abortion and every man who has encouraged one as he offers forgiveness and reconciliation with God through the cross by faith. But it is undeniabley true that Western culture is increasingly bearing the fruit of Romans 1 in this world, for “though [we] know God’s decree that those who practice such things [all manners of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossip, slanders, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless and ruthless] deserve to die, [we] not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” (1:32). Have mercy on us, God. And use your people to offer hope and redemption through the Son Jesus to this broken, fractured, rebellious world.